After a chest operation such as open heart surgery, a patient is normally bandaged with an absorbent material over an incision and wrapped with an elastic band or dressing of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,803 to Hyman or a stretchable chest dressing of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,152,741 to Farnio and U.S. Pat. No. 5,538,502 to Johnstone. Hyman, Farnio and Johnstone are all owned by a common assignee with this application and the disclosures of each are incorporated herein by reference.
Open heart surgery or other surgery where the chest cavity is opened involves making an incision over the sternum or breastbone beginning near the patient's throat and extending downwardly six to ten inches through the skin and the pectoral muscles which are attached to the sternum. Next, the ligaments which hold the ribs to the sternum must be severed so that the ribs over the patient's heart can be pried back to expose the heart and lungs. The surgery is extremely painful, and ribs, sternum and muscles must be adequately supported after surgery to allow the region to heal. The healing process may be complicated if the individual is obese and/or if a woman has large breasts. This is because the breasts or excess fatty tissue of a patient lying in a supine position tends to fall away from the center of the patient's chest and toward the sides of the patient. This, in turn, causes stress on the sutures along the sternum and causes pain as the moving flesh pulls at the injured ribs of the patient. Thus, recovery for such patients may be more painful and lengthy than it would if the breasts, breast tissue and area adjacent to the breasts were immobilized.
In the past, rigid splints were used to provide support for the chest tissue and, generally, to immobilize the chest area while the incision healed. Such splints caused breathing difficulties, were uncomfortable and therefore unacceptable. An improved dressing is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,152,741 to Farnio. The improved dressing is designed to provide support for injured tissue on the side of a patient's body which is present after a mastectomy. Such dressings may be used after any type of chest surgery, but are not well suited for relieving the stress on incisions which result from open chest surgery and the like, because they do not adequately restrain the breasts and breast tissue. If applied exceptionally tightly in an attempt to reduce the mobility of the breast tissue, flesh tends to bunch beneath the patient's arms and the patient's breasts are unduly flattened. A dressing worn in this fashion can be uncomfortable and unacceptable to the patient.
A further improvement to dressings is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,538,502 to Johnstone. This improvement is designed to form of a chest encircling flexible band of stretchable material having two substantially non-stretchable portions which conform generally to the body of the patient while the non-stretchable portions position the breasts of the patient so as reduce the stress on the incision. The chest encircling flexible band allows the dressing to expand as the patient breathes while maintaining a constant closing pressure on the incision. The elastic band is positioned at the back of the patient to be positioned away from the incision and the substantially non-stretchable pieces of material are located in proximity to the breasts of the patient when the dressing is in place. Such a dressing design overcame the problems associated with elastic material being located near the incision.
Although U.S. Pat. No. 5,538,502 to Johnstone overcame many of the problems associated with past dressings, a need still remains to provide a dressing with improved comfort to the patient.